Tag Archives: Closer

The $ 15 billion, 55-kilometer (34-mile) bridge, which Xinhua says is the world’s longest sea link, opens for business at 9 a.m. Wednesday and is tipped to carry some 29,000 cars and trucks daily between Zhuhai on the mainland and Hong Kong, a former British colony. It also envisions a better marriage between China’s industrial might and its one-party state and the liberal, capitalist bastions of Hong Kong and Macau, which have their own passports, currencies, trade policies, courts and civil rights. The Greater Bay Area could serve as a new growth engine for the capital markets of Hong Kong, the casinos of Macau, formerly a Portuguese colony, and nearby Shenzhen, the economic powerhouse one of Xi’s predecessors, Deng Xiaoping, built on their doorstep almost four decades ago.

Malaysia’s Anwar Ibrahim won a by-election engineered for his return to parliament by an overwhelming majority on Saturday, bringing him closer to the premiership that has been promised to him by former foe, Mahathir Mohamad. The victory marks Anwar’s official return to political life just five months after he was freed from jail, and will also be the first time that both he and Mahathir are members of parliament under the same banner after a bitter feud lasting over 20 years. Anwar, who has been the face of Malaysia’s Reformasi or Reform movement over the past twenty years, won the seat by a majority of over 23,500 votes despite a low voter turnout on polling day in the coastal parliamentary seat of Port Dickson.

The planet is even closer to catastrophe than scientists previously predicted, according to a new report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The report, that took 3 years to create and included 91 authors from 40 countries, says the planet will reach the crucial threshold of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels as early as 2040. Scientists predict that any higher than 1.5°C and the effects will be irreversible. “There is extreme urgency and countries were giving their pledges after the Paris agreement and so far, the progress has not been good enough,” said World Meteorological Organizations secretary, Petteri Taalas.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists officially moved its Doomsday Clock 30 seconds closer to 'midnight' on Thursday morning, citing both rising nuclear tensions and climate change as the main influences behind the update.

Democrats were quick to react after the Senate voted along party lines to pass a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. tax code. The unpopular piece of legislation overwhelmingly favors big business and the wealthiest of Americans and adds a whopping $ 1.4 trillion to the national debt. Ahead of the vote, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called the Tax Cut and Reform Bill “a disgrace” on the Senate floor. “The bill that the Republicans jammed through the Senate tonight isn’t tax reform,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said.